


skinny love

by lookingforatardis



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst, Disillusionment, Future Fic, Heartache, M/M, Unresolved Tension, argument, probably like during find me promo?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 21:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: [set at some point in the future]After a long night, Timmy contemplates the state of his relationship with Armie. Song fic inspired by Bon Iver's Skinny Love.





	skinny love

**Author's Note:**

> I've loved this song for years and years but rediscovered it last night and wrote this in a sitting. [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLOr_FrJJWA) is the is a specific version of this song that set this fic into existence. In fact, you should watch that version, not just listen-- there's so much raw intensity in their voices and movements during the chorus that I couldn't _ not _ write. I've always been so fascinated and a bit terrified by the idea of skinny love. I remember hearing this song for the first time and realizing this kind of love is so pervasive. This is dealing with that, I suppose. __

_And now all your love is wasted_  
_And then who the hell was I?_  
_And I'm breaking at the britches_  
_And at the end of all your lines_

* * *

The fog glows in the city light as it settles deep in the early morning hour. Timmy's body stands wilting, silhouetted in obscurity on the small terrace as smoke rises from his fingertips, his lips, eyes blinking only when the drag of dryness forces them.

_I told you this would take time—_

_I can't just make a fucking announcement._

_What did you expect, that it would just happen overnight?_

The ashes scatter over the ledge. Timmy wonders why they put a terrace up this high; wasn't that some kind of safety violation? It wouldn't pass in New York. Too much risk. He swallows, takes a drag to erase how gritty his throat feels. He doesn't even smoke, what a joke.

It had happened suddenly. One minute they were kissing, the next he was gathering his clothes and dressing in the hallway while the shock set in. The elevator took too long and he wore a scrape on his knee from the stair he missed on the flights he ran down in haste. The nearest hotel away from him was full, he had to move on, find another, mute his phone. It had been hours and he was afraid to look now, afraid of the texts he knew would sit in his inbox, begging him to _think about this._ He fears the second he looks he'll cave and listen to whatever he's been spun this time.

In the end, it's crazy how the little things eat away at the cracks, how a three year _whatever-we-are_ can end with a single spiraling realization.

The pit in his stomach hasn't eased since he saw the tweet, something from a fan about Timmy being a side piece for years without an end in sight. He'd brushed it off but brought it up with Armie, almost like a joke. For what it's worth, he had the decency to look mortified as he sat with his thoughts, gathering them to throw into the spaces between the stolen moments and phone calls and FaceTime dates. "I'm not… right?" Timmy had asked when Armie just scoffed at the tweet. "Armie?"

After he'd talked him away from that metaphorical ledge, Timmy's mind raced and raced and tripped up on moments he didn’t want to focus on, days when Armie would completely ignore his calls and the days when he was so clingy Timmy didn't know what to do with him. "Am I your, your therapist? Or something?" he'd asked, a bit disgusted. "If I'm not a side piece what the hell am I?"

The silence he was met with still rings in his ears.

He shouldn't have pushed, he should have walked away before starting the war he'd always known was coming, but he always _knew_ it was coming, and there was something about the night that pushed him to just ask. "You're never leaving her, are you?" Then came the excuses, the bartering, the begging Timmy not to leave and promises held empty in his hands like cheap keychains to remember the years they'd spent together. No amount of _it doesn't happen overnight_'s could settle the panic in Timmy's chest, the numbness he felt spreading from his fingertips in through his veins.

He'd been chasing him for years, the two catching each other for nights at a time in cities all over the world to be together. Timmy thought it was brutally romantic, until it just felt brutal.

They'd fought before, it wasn't nearly the first time, but it felt different. They'd never fought about how they felt, only about circumstance, about how others felt, about being ignored or forgotten. Never about what this really was. And maybe Timmy had intentionally never brought it up, and maybe Armie had never offered to, and maybe they were just floundering through this with the blind hope that one day a path would clear itself and they wouldn't have to talk about it.

The cigarette falls from Timmy's fingers and he watches it on the tile of his terrace, eyes slow to blink closed. He ought to go inside; Armie would tell him the chill would make him sicker than a dog. He stays out an extra two minutes stewing in his thoughts.

When they'd consolidated their PR teams, Timmy thought it was a sign that things were going to go in his favor. But months passed, then years, and the only thing it seemed to accomplish was keep their images in the public carefully crafted to hide things no one wanted to let out. It had no impact on his reality, in fact it may have just given more cover for them to avoid the questions they should have asked when this all started.

His feet are frozen as he walks back into the hotel room, a shaky hand sliding the door closed and letting the curtains cloak the light from the warmer air inside. The bed is already messed up (he'd jumped on it when he arrived in an attempt to stop the numbing in his body) so he slips under the covers after shucking off his shirt and sweatpants. His phone blinks at him on the bedside table, taunting him.

Sleep evades him, dreams haunting him as he tosses and turns on the mattress. Hours must pass he thinks, but when he checks it's been only minutes.

Armie had told him in the beginning that he would need to be patient with him; he'd told him a lot of things. Timmy had believed him because he never gave him a reason to doubt, not in anything he'd ever said. The fallout of _this_ would be detrimental and he knows it. Neither one would be able to mask the night's toll on their psyche, and in that at least, Timmy finds some comfort knowing he won't be alone.

After the third attempt to sleep, he grabs his phone and covers his head with the blankets as he unlocks it, opens his messages. There are too many, some longer than others, some just _I'm sorry._ He reads them, reads them again and wills himself not to hope Armie would still be awake as he hits _Call_.

"Hi—" the voice is warm and thick on the other end after only one ring.

"I'm mad at you," Timmy mumbles, voice shaking.

"I know, fuck I know. I've been shitty. I told you that—"

"I don't fucking care what you told me," Timmy hisses. "I care that you haven't done a single thing to make this real since we started whatever it is."

"I'm trying—"

"You don't even label this! How am I supposed to just hold on when I don't even know what I'm holding on to? Do you even want me or am I just the only person who will listen?" Timmy feels the cold of the night creeping back up as Armie sighs on the other end.

"Of course I want you. Damn it, Timmy! Of _course_ I want you—"

"Then why does it feel like this is over?"

"I don't know." The defeat in Armie's voice makes Timmy's eyes close. "I'll try harder," he starts.

"Armie—"

"I will, okay? I can fix this."

"How? No really. How?" Timmy's foot nervously taps against his other ankle as he listens to Armie breathe. "I don't want to walk away from you, either," he whispers. "But you're not giving me much of a choice."

"Please don't," Armie pleas, his voice breaking for the first time of the evening. "We can figure it out. We can be more official, I'll, I'll talk to her and hurry things up—"

"You haven't even filed, Armie. What are you going to say? Sorry, Timmy's having a meltdown we need to get a divorce? Fuck," he bites back. "You're using me."

"I'm not—"

"You _are_, though. You're using me to hide from everything else. Because I make it better, you said that yourself. You said I make everything _better_."

"You _do_."

"I don't think I even want this," Timmy admits. "I don't think I even want you to leave her, because then we have to come out and it'll be this whole thing."

"Timmy, what are you even saying?"

"This is never going to work! I signed on for this, you're right. I knew what I was getting myself into. Maybe that's the point. Maybe this is all I wanted."

"Then what are we even _fighting_ about?!"

"The fact that this is all I want!" Timmy nearly shouts. "The fact that for some reason I'm okay with letting you do this!"

"I'm confused…" Timmy could hear the night wearing on Armie’s voice, the tension held deep in his bones through his tired breaths. He ached for him.

"This isn't healthy, Armie. This isn't okay." Timmy scrubs his hand over his face. "I don't want to be okay with this. I want to want more. I want to not be content hiding in the shadows like some 19th century villain." Timmy's lip trembles as he presses his eyes closed. "I don't know what happened to us, but something happened, Armie. I can't keep doing this."

"I love you, though."

"Maybe that's not enough," Timmy whispers, his voice breaking. For a long time, they sit in silence while their breathing steadies and slows.

"Will I see you again?"

Timmy sniffles and tucks his hand under his chin. "We have press tomorrow, or, today I guess."

"You know what I mean."

"I don't know, Armie," Timmy sighs. "I don't fucking know. I need to sleep."

"Don't do this."

"You did this, too," Timmy mumbles. "Don't fucking pretend this is all my problem, don't pretend like you haven't been pushing me towards this."

"I don't even know what you want!"

"Shouldn't you? Armie it's been years, it's been fucking years shouldn't one of us know what we want out of this?"

"Timmy—"

"I can't keep wasting my time waiting for something to happen when we don't even know what that something is." Timmy rolls onto his back and nudges his face free of the stifling blankets. "I think we both need to sleep." The silence drags on so long Timmy thinks Armie must have fallen asleep when he hears his voice, quiet and broken.

"I hate this, Tim."

"I know," Timmy nods, taking a deep breath. "So do I."

"I don't want to say goodnight," Armie's voice barely forms the words. Timmy listens to him breathe for a moment, his eyes closed tight as he feels the numbness giving way to tears.

"Then don’t," he whispers, hanging up before Armie has a chance to fight him on it.

Sleep comes quickly with the hot tears, his face smushed against the side of the pillow as he tries to forget.


End file.
